


At Wit's End

by masulevin



Series: Vic & Chloe Ryder [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Age Difference, Custom Female Ryder | Sara, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Physical Therapy, Slow Burn, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 21:16:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masulevin/pseuds/masulevin
Summary: While her brother is off saving the cluster from the kett, Chloe Ryder is stuck on the Hyperion to recover from the weeks she spent in a coma. Rebuilding her strength and muscle tone is nothing compared to trying to ignore the building attraction to her doctor -- Harry Carlyle, the man she'd wanted to seduce back in the Milky Way before she lost her chance.My entry for the 2018 MEBB! Featuring art by the wonderful seokanori!





	At Wit's End

**Author's Note:**

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> Art by the wonderful, lovely, talented [seokanori](https://seokanori.tumblr.com/)! 

She feels like she’s floating. She can’t possibly be -- gravity exists on space stations, even if it’s lighter in the outer rims, and she’s never spent very much time in the Citadel wards -- but that’s how it feels. Like she’s been untethered from reality and let loose inside her own brain.

It’s not the most pleasant experience she’s ever had, though it’s far from the worst.

Low voices surround her most of the time. Usually it’s just chatter, far enough away that she can’t quite make out the words, but sometimes a voice stands out from the crowd and speaks closer to her for a while. Maybe he’s speaking to her. Or… reading to her.

Didn’t Vic say Harry sometimes reads to her?

_When did she speak to Vic?_

It’s hard to focus with everything _fucking_ floating like this.

She tries to focus. She knows she has SAM with her, somewhere, but she can’t find him, she can’t even figure out how to ask him to come back from wherever he’s gone. Probably to help Vic. That would… make sense.

Instead, she waits until that one voice gets close to her and tries to follow it, fighting her way through the empty space to find it. Without a visual reference, she doesn’t know which way is up. It’s like drowning or being out on a spacewalk. How does she know which way is up when there is nothing to tell her which way is _down_?

She feels her heartbeat first. She was looking for her hands, but her heart might be an even better starting point. It beats regularly, distributing oxygen throughout her body, keeping her alive. She finds her lungs next, feels the breaths coming in and out as the organs expand and contract. She tries to make it go faster, and she gasps in a very deep breath that hurts her throat and makes her lips rip apart.

The voices around her are so much louder. Someone might be yelling, but she can’t focus on anything other than breathing because it _hurts_ but she’s in _control_ and nothing has ever felt that good.

She finds her eyes and opens them, glaring up at the white ceiling above her. Her forehead wrinkles and she rasps in another breath, giving up the struggle to keep her eyes open in favor of trying to lick her lips. She can’t control her whole body at once yet. It’s a losing battle. She’s okay with focusing on one thing at a time.

She finds her hands and lifts one of them. Someone else grabs it, fingers wrapping around hers. She squeezes, and they squeeze back. She tries to smile, but it feels sort of like a grimace. Hasn’t anyone been putting lip balm on her?

“Can you hear me, Chloe?” Harry. “Squeeze my hand again if you can hear me.” She obeys, and he responds with a ragged laugh. He turns away from her and barks orders she can’t quite hear or understand, then he’s back, smoothing his free hand over her forehead to push her hair out of her eyes. “Try not to move too much. You’ve been out of it for a while now.”

He squeezes her hand again and then that anchoring point -- that point that tells her which way is up and which way is down -- is gone. His voice barks out more commands, telling the other techs what to do to help her wake up the rest of the way.

It hurts for a bit, but then someone comes with ice chips and distracts her. They feel good on her dry lips and tongue, soothing to a throat she hadn’t realized was hurting until it stopped. Soon, she can open her eyes and sit up with the help of a few pillows behind her head. Soon after that, she can talk to the tech about how she’s feeling and go through a few simple tests -- yes, she can move her toes, yes, she can feel that, no, she doesn’t have any questions -- and then she’s told to sit quietly and wait.

She obeys. What choice does she have? Her legs work, but they aren’t strong enough to support her. She already feels like she’s going to fall asleep again, but now that she knows which way is up, she doesn’t want to go back into that blank space and forget.

She’s awake when Harry comes back, and she can’t stop herself from staring at him. She met him a couple of times before going into cryo, together with Vic, and thought him handsome at the time (she may have described him as “fucking hot” and as a “silver fox” with plans to drag him back to her room, but what do those details matter now?), but now he looks… tired.

Exhausted, really. His hair is askew and, truth be told, a little greasy. There are deep shadows under his eyes that show he’s gone a long time without getting his proper eight hours, and there’s a mystery stain on the front of his uniform that she decides to ignore as soon as she sees it.

His smile, though, is the same as she remembers. It’s wide and relieved, white teeth gleaming in the harsh light of the med bay, and it makes her smile back.

“I brought your omnitool,” Harry says, handing it to her before pulling up a stool to sit at her side. “Your brother is in a meeting, but I let him know you’re awake. I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can.”

Chloe takes it from him and slips it on her left wrist with trembling fingers, but resists opening it up to check for messages. She’s been in a goddamn coma -- who would be sending her stuff? She needs to focus on whatever Harry’s saying to her now.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Harry clutches a datapad in his gloved hands, elbows resting on his knees, his shoulders slumped over. The man is _tired,_ and Chloe wants to tell him to go take a nap before he tries to see if she’s okay, but… that’s not really her place. Nor is this the time.

Instead, she turns to look at the blanket covering her up to her hips and considers. She wants to say the techs closing her into her stasis pod back in the Milky Way, but… “Did I wake up and talk to Vic?” She twists to look at Harry again, her forehead wrinkling. “I know… I know Dad is dead, but…” She trails off and wills herself not to cry as the half-memory comes back to her, waiting for Harry to fill in the blanks.

His lips are twisted in a grimace. Several days worth of dark stubble is covering his cheeks and chin, and he rasps his fingers through it before he speaks. “SAM connected your implants so we could communicate, but… it upset you.”

Chloe nods. “I… yeah. Vic said Dad’s dead but Habitat 7 was great.” Harry’s grimace deepens. “What?”

“It’s not really my--” Harry’s protest dies on his lips as she continues to stare at him, eyebrows raised even as her eyelids droop with exhaustion. He sighs and tries again. “I was on Habitat 7. He… may have exaggerated its, uh… livability.”

“By how much?”

“Hmm, a lot. It’s not… exactly viable, at all, really; but, Vic has been making a lot of progress on a few other planets. He has a couple of colonies set up already. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about them when he gets here…” Harry trails off, not meeting her gaze, and checks his omnitool, eyeballing the time. He licks his lips, and Chloe’s gaze zeroes in on the motion.

“Eager to get rid of me, Harry?” she asks, aiming for a teasing tone to put him at ease. He’s so much more tense than the last time she saw him. Things must be much worse here than he’s let on. “I’ve been in a coma for… for how long, and you’re already tired of being my babysitter?”

Harry does meet her eyes then, his whole face twisted in an apologetic grimace that makes her regret her choice of words. “I’m sure you’d rather talk to your brother about all of this.”

“Uhh…” Would it be out of line to ask how he’s feeling? He looks like shit. Chloe aims for a more tactful question and tries, “How have you been, Harry?”

He blinks at her dumbly before trying to answer. “Me?” A rough chuckle pushes its way between his lips, but he doesn’t smile. “You’re the one who was unconscious for eight weeks.”

Eight weeks? Jesus. “You look like _you_ could use an eight-week coma, Doc.” It’s a little rude, but it gets a tepid chuckle out of him and a tiny half-smile. “Are things that bad?”

Harry shakes his head. “Things are getting better every day. There just aren’t enough people awake yet, and keeping you Ryders alive is a full-time job.”

There it is again, that little reminder that not only is her mom dead, but her dad is too. Her throat constricts and her eyes threaten to well with tears. She coughs a little and shifts on the bed. If Vic doesn’t show up soon, she’s going to end up falling asleep, and then he’ll be faced with her unconscious form once again.

“What’s my prognosis, then, Harry?” She fiddles with her omnitool instead of looking at him as he considers her question, giving him a moment of privacy to figure out how to lie better about whatever situation is facing them in Heleus. “Give me the bad news.”

“Well, there isn’t much bad news, thankfully.” Even out of the corner of her eyes, she can see his shoulders relaxing a bit as he turns to the datapad in his hands. He turns on the display and scrolls through the text as he continues: “We’ll have to do more testing, but cognitively, you seem fine, no memory loss or gaps. You’ve seen a loss of muscle mass, but it isn’t excessive. You probably just need some time to rest and build up your strength, and then you’ll be out in the field with your brother trying to give me a heart attack.”

She gives him a flat look, and he gives her another half smile.

The door to her room flings open and Vic tumbles through, grabbing the knob and door frame to stay upright. His hair is too long to stay in its usual upright style, and instead the grayish locks flop in front of his eyes as he skids to a stop.

“Chloe, oh my _god_ ,” he pants out, and Harry jumps up and out of his way in time for Vic to throw himself onto the bed. Chloe holds her arms out for her twin and he nearly falls into her embrace -- honestly, how can a man so clumsy be in charge of humanity’s future? -- though he releases her just as fast. “Are you okay? How long have you been awake?” He swivels to look at Harry, who’s trying to slink out the door to give them some privacy. “Is she okay?”

“I’m fine, V,” she says, swatting at his shoulder. He sits next to her, making her tip to the side on the thin mattress. “Harry says just some muscle atrophy, right?” She looks at Harry for confirmation, and the man glances between the two of them before nodding.

“We need to do more tests,” he allows, “but she seems fine. Nothing some PT and rest won’t cure. You two can talk, but let her rest when she gets tired, okay?”

“You got it, Doc,” Vic says, and Harry takes the chance to slip out of the room and continue on his rounds. They watch him disappear from the doorway before Vic turns back to Chloe to talk more. He looks tired too, but somehow not so much as Harry. “I can’t believe you finally woke up.”

“I’m _glad_ I finally woke up,” she says, settling back a little onto her pillows. How can she be so tired after sleeping for six hundred years plus eight weeks? “ _I_ can’t believe that you lied to me about our new home.”

His smile falls and his shoulders hunch as he seems to fold in on himself. “I’m sorry. You were just so upset about Dad that I couldn’t disappoint you twice.”

“It’s fine, V. I’m… it wouldn’t have made me wake up any faster.” It’s getting harder to keep her eyes open, and Vic frowns when her head dips forward and then jerks back as she realizes she’s falling asleep and tries to force herself awake. “Goddamn, being in a coma really takes it out of you,” she says, a little smirk twisting her lips up.

He chuckles, a little exhale that makes her smile grow. “That’s what I’ve heard. You should sleep some. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

She nods and snuggles down, letting her head tip back. She sits back up right away, but he pushes her gently with his hand on her shoulder. “Wait -- I forgot to ask. Have you found any new aliens to fuck? I know that was your, like, _one_ goal.”

With her eyes closed, she can’t see the blush blooming on his face, but she _can_ hear him clear his throat before he answers. “You asked me that when you were in the coma, too, you know. You’re very concerned with my sex life.”

She hums. “So you _did_ find one, huh? Make sure to bring ‘em tomorrow, ‘kay?” Her voice is starting to slur and drift as she gets closer to sleep. “Gotta -- gotta makes sure they’re good ‘nough for my baby brother.”

\---

He’s gone when she wakes up, an undetermined number of hours later. The lights in her room are dimmed, but not out completely, and the IV is still connected to her arm. She has to pee like nobody’s business, though, and she has no desire to stay in her bed for one minute longer than she has to. She looks around for a nurse call button, or to see if there’s anyone near her, when she notices her omnitool still sitting on her wrist.

That gives her an idea.

“SAM?”

“ _Yes, Ryder?_ ” SAM’s response is immediate, speaking through her omnitool. Creepy, a little, sure. Definitely handy.

“Can you get, uhh--” Not Harry. Anyone but. “A nurse? I guess? I need a woman to help me go to the bathroom.”

“ _Of course._ ”

There’s no other acknowledgment from her new AI friend, and Chloe leaves it alone to work, focused on pressing her thighs together and trying to ignore her bad breath. Maybe she can brush her teeth in the bathroom too. This whole coma thing is… not fun.

One of the med techs shows up after just a minute with a soft smile on her face and helps Chloe climb out of bed and walk -- IV bag in tow, rolling around on its little pole -- into the bathroom. Just that little walk makes her legs tremble, and she’s relieved when she can finally sit on the toilet.

It’s the 2800s -- why hasn’t anyone figured out how to let coma patients keep their strength up? Completely unreasonable.

The tech helps her back into bed and helps her brush her hair and teeth with some supplies Vic brought by at some point while she slept before disappearing again. Chloe lets her go and pulls up her omnitool interface to look through messages. She has a _lot_.

The most recent one is from Vic, asking her if it’s okay to bring Jaal by without explaining who Jaal is. Chloe lets him know it’s fine before moving on. Harry’s sent her a tentative treatment plan, contingent on how her evaluation goes later today, but he’s “confident” that she’ll exceed expectations and make a full, fast recovery.

After she spends too long trying to decide how to respond to that email before ultimately deciding to ignore it entirely, she scrolls down to the beginning of her messages to see what else she has. They’re all from Vic, and she opens them in order to see what he has to say.

They’re mostly pictures of the places he’s been, starting with Habitat 7. It’s beautiful if incredibly deadly, with rocks literally floating in the air, weird glowy plants, and lightning everywhere. There are pictures of the Nexus, where she could easily go if only she could walk more than four steps by herself, of the Tempest, of his crew.

Each snapshot comes with a little note to say who’s in the picture, what he was thinking when he took it, or what he thought she’d respond. More planets follow the first along with Vic’s impressions of them: Eos (too sandy), Voeld (too cold), Havarl (beautiful but too dangerous), Aya (beautiful but not very welcoming), and Kadara (smelly and full of criminals). The archon’s ship, tethered to the salarian ark, as seen from the Tempest.

A whole world, a whole _universe_ , of adventure out there that she missed out on because she was _asleep._ It’s stupid and not fair and such a trick of luck. Of course -- there’s always the possibility that _she_ would have been on Habitat 7 to watch their father die and _Vic_ could have been the one locked in a coma for two months… but is that really what she wants? To make Vic give up so much just so she can have his adventures when she can have some of her own if she just does what Harry says?

She falls asleep looking at one of the most recent pictures, of Harry reading to her from his datapad while she slept.

\---

Chloe wakes to footsteps in her room and the creaking of a chair as it adjusts to unexpected weight, but she keeps her eyes closed as she hopes for a few more minutes of peace.

Vic’s voice lets her know that won’t be happening. “God, you’d think she’d’ve had enough sleep by now.”

“I’ve had enough sleep to kick your ass.” She opens one eye to peer at him and is greeted by his wide, toothy smile. “Hey, brother.” She struggles to sit up, pushing up on arms that don’t want to hold her weight, and hands that aren’t Vic’s are suddenly there, helping her move and adjusting her pillows for her. Her eyes go wide at that, but she just follows Vic’s gaze by looking over her shoulder.

Standing behind her, _literal_ starry eyes wide, is a very large, very purple alien. They blink at each other until he releases her and steps back, sitting back down in his chair with the same groan she heard just a moment before. They keep staring at each other, unashamed, and she lets her eyes take in the unfamiliar curves of his form, the unusual pigmentation of his skin, the cat-like appearance of his eyes. He grins, and her eyes focus on his sharp teeth, and then she physically jumps when he starts to speak.

“Hello, _sholaon_!” he says, voice loud and rumbly at the same time. Chloe glances over her shoulder at Vic, whose cheeks are pink but whose smile hasn’t left, and then looks back at the stranger. “I am Jaal Ama Darav. I have heard much about you from Victor.”

“Err. I’m Chloe.” She sticks out her right hand before she can think about it. Jaal glances at Vic before shaking it. Vic must have taught him. His hands only have three fingers, and when she looks down to confirm what she feels, she sees that the larger digit looks like three fingers fused together. “You’re Vic’s… boy… friend?” She stumbles over the word, not sure if it’s right, but Jaal just nods.

“He is my darling one,” he confirms, and Chloe can’t help but giggle. She looks back over her shoulder to where Vic is still beaming, red-faced, eyes locked on Jaal. Chloe presses her hand to her heart and beams back at Jaal.

“What did you call me? Shoa--”

“ _Sholaon_ ,” he says, correcting her stumbling question without commenting on her poor pronunciation. “It is our word for an… adopted sibling. One without family of their own that we bring into ours.” He’s still beaming, his easy acceptance of her written all over his face.

He doesn’t even _know_ her, and already he calls her sister. Her traitorous eyes start to water, and she scoffs before wiping at them with the back of her hand.

“Aww, Jaal,” Vic coos from her other side. “You made her cry.”

Jaal’s eyes roam over her face. “Tears of joy or of sadness?” he asks, and Chloe scoffs again.

“I’m just tired,” she says, and she thinks she sees Jaal sending a look over to Vic, but he lets it slide. “So… uh, tell me how you two met?” She doesn’t know anything about Heleus yet. She doesn’t know anything about the angara. She does know her brother.

Jaal starts. “Well, the Tempest crash-landed on Aya--”

“It wasn’t a crash!” Vic cries, like he’s heard this a hundred times.

“You _were_ on fire,” Jaal drawls, and Chloe giggles, turning to get the real story from Jaal while settling back into the nest of pillows he created for her to listen.

\---

“Just take one more step, Chloe.”

Instead of taking that one more step, Chloe closes her eyes and seriously considers the ramifications of punching her physical therapist in the face. After a few heartbeats, she decides not to commit assault -- her arms are probably too weak to do any real harm anyway -- and she opens her eyes again to level the woman with her hardest glare.

Then she takes just one more step, and then another, ignoring the sweat that beads on her scalp and runs down her neck. Dr. Thorne -- a slightly unfortunate name for a doctor, but not the worst Chloe’s ever come across -- is just beaming at her, so proud that she’s able to bear her own weight unassisted when she _was_ able to beat Vic at a pull-up competition on a good day. Chloe hates her with a burning passion but tries to ignore it.

Thorne didn’t really do anything bad. It just hurts. And it isn’t _her_ fault that Chloe’s so out of shape.

Besides, Harry joined them for the session, and Chloe doesn’t want him to see her lose her temper. She’d also rather him not see her sweating through her shirt from twenty minutes of very very light exercise either, but he hasn’t commented on it. He’s just standing at the edge of the PT room, arms crossed, a serious expression on his face as he watches her work.

“How do I look, Harry?” she calls, glancing over at his trim form before yanking her eyes away. Her voice sounds strained, trembling, and she tries to muffle the grunts of pain as she continues working.

He doesn’t answer at first, apparently considering. “Better than last week.”

 

That makes her smile, eyes flashing to meet his. Their gazes catch and hold, and she watches with wonder as his softens. Her face heats, even already warm as it is from exertion, and she’s suddenly happy that her complexion hides blushes better than Vic’s does.

She looks back at Thorne and tries to focus again. The sooner she gets through _this_ , the sooner she can be out _there_ with Vic -- who’s been sending her even more pictures now that she can respond and actually comment on them. The latest batch were all from Voeld, a planet he informs her is too cold for building snowmen or ice skating but has mountains she might like to climb, where he’s spent several days in a row ousting the kett. She’s not super jealous of that part, all the fighting. She’s good at it, but she doesn’t love it. She’s mostly jealous that he gets to actually _go._

And, as an added bonus for working so hard, maybe Harry will keep looking at her with that fucking smile on his face, like he _cares_ about her.

Thorne helps her settle into a wheelchair, and Chloe gratefully drops into it, groaning dramatically as she throws her head back. Thorne laughs and pats her shoulder with gentle fingers before ceding control of the chair to Harry.

“I’ll see you day after tomorrow!” Thorne calls, and (again) Chloe resists the urge to do something childish like making an inappropriate gesture. Instead, she pulls her legs up to the footrests and sits up a little before calling a polite farewell over her shoulder.

Harry sighs as he pushes Chloe down the wide, bright corridors, and when she looks up to see through the wide observation windows to see the scourge curling around their station, she sees him looking back down at her.

Chloe links her fingers together in her lap and stares down at them. Christ, spending this much time with Harry is going to be the death of her. Forget the scourge and the kett and everything else in Heleus -- it’s going to be close proximity to Harry without the ability or courage to just tell him what she feels.

No, scratch that -- she can’t even tell herself how she feels. Back in the Milky Way, he’d been a handsome friend of her father’s, just off-limits enough to be tempting without being totally wrong, something fun to think about on lonely nights. Now, he’s a man full of compassion, who sat at her bedside and read books to her when he should have been resting, who still sits next to her and chats when he finishes a long shift and she’s up worried about Vic when she should be sleeping.

Maybe that lust has morphed into a crush to celebrate their new home.

…shit.

She covers her face with her hands and groans low in her throat. “When do I get my own apartment, Harry?” She tries not to whine, but she’s tired of seeing the same faces staring at her when she’s wheeled in and out of the medbay, and she’s tired of all her privacy being taken away with nurses parading in and out of her room in the middle of the night and all of her belongings still in storage.

“You already have an apartment, Chloe,” comes Harry’s voice from above her. They’ve reached her room in the medbay, _not_ her mystery apartment. “And I will happily help you move in once you can shower without me worrying you’ll break a hip.”

Jesus. “Aww, you worry about me, Harry?”

He grunts and waves for a nurse to join them. “Of course I do.” Hope traitorously rising-- “You’re my patient.”

Well. Damn.

She wrinkles up her face and drums her fingers against her thigh. “I’m really more of Dr. Thorne’s patient,” she mutters.

Harry just pats her shoulder. “You’re getting stronger every day. You’ll be out of here in no time, and then you won’t have to waste your time with an old man.”

She twists to stare up at him, but he’s already striding off with his back straight. What a fucking thing to say.

\---

Harry’s shift has been over for more than an hour, but it doesn’t even occur to him to leave Chloe alone until she starts to ask questions about when she’ll be able to leave the medbay and says she’s not really his patient anymore. The idea that he worries about her seems to surprise and amuse her, but the expression on her face when he said “you’re my patient”... he doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to stand with her one more moment, and he uses the end of his shift as an excuse to run.

Not literally, of course. It’s more of a fast walk, if anything, that gets just a little faster when Chloe turns around in her wheelchair to watch him leave.

He didn’t spend that much time with either of the Ryder twins back in the Milky Way. He only met them twice -- the first time at Ellen’s memorial service, and the second just before the Hyperion launched -- and Alec rarely spoke about them outside of casual mentions when they finally agreed to come to Andromeda too.

Each and every time he sees Chloe, he has to remind himself that he’s her doctor, her father’s friend, and many years her senior. He didn’t know exactly how many until he got his hands on her medical file after she failed to awaken from cryo -- and even then, he knows fifteen years is too great a gap between a twenty-five-year-old girl and a forty-year-old man.

Maybe the best thing to do _is_ to make sure she’s not his patient anymore. She’s right about one thing: she doesn’t need him now. Her work with Dr. Thorne is the only thing she still needs before she’s strong enough to join the Pathfinder team. A few more weeks of physical therapy, a couple to brush up on her training, and then…

And then he won’t see her for days or weeks at a time as she travels the cluster with Vic, putting herself in danger, finding someone age-appropriate to fall in love with. With any luck, she’ll help her brother save the galaxy, move into one of the new colonies, and he’ll be able to forget all about her.

But then again… when has he ever been lucky?

His apartment on the Hyperion is tiny, just big enough for one person, and close enough to the med bay that he doesn’t need to take the tram unless he wants to go to a different section of the ship or to the bar on the Nexus. He considers, briefly, taking the time to travel to the Vortex, but the twelve hours spent on his feet tending to injured, ill, and newly-awoken make their opinion loudly known.

Shower, first. Then bed.

He obeys his needs, walking up the back staircase that leads him to one of the rows of apartments built specifically for medical staff. His apartment, originally assigned to Lexi, is towards the far end, and he grabs a cherry-flavored energy bar as he passes through his empty kitchen on his way to the bathroom.

It’s gone before he turns the water on for his shower, eaten in three large bites as he strips off his uniform and puts it in the laundry chute. Not even five minutes later and he’s tucked into bed, skin bare against slightly-scratchy sheets. His omnitool changes the apartment’s lights from day-cycle to night-cycle, leaving him in the dark with his thoughts and the same bone-deep weariness that’s followed him since he was first able to sit down after he knew Vic was safe within SAM-node.

He stretches out onto his stomach and pillows his head on his arms, trying to will all his sore muscles to relax and let him get some sleep. It isn’t just the lingering, dull pain that keeps him awake so much as it is the lingering _memories_ that play through his mind when he closes his eyes.

Memories like the first time he actually met the twins, two years before the Initiative’s launch into dark space at Ellen’s memorial service. He’d gone for Alec’s sake, to support his friend, but the man had seemed oddly put-together considering the occasion. Vic and Chloe huddled together at Alec’s side, occasionally whispering to each other instead of interacting with the strangers who came to give their condolences.

He gave Chloe his handkerchief -- an honest-to-god real handkerchief -- and she took it with an expression that he now knows was one of embarrassment. Her mascara was running a little, and she fixed it while he moved to speak to another man he recognized. She kept the handkerchief and her eyes had followed him until he left.

He hadn’t thought much of her at the time. She was grieving, he was still married, and they only spoke for a few moments before he moved on. The next time they met, though, at the Nexus launch party… that was a completely different story.

She was wearing a short dress, light blue, and heels that brought her up to his height. She’d been training to join the Pathfinder team with Alec, and it showed in her toned muscles and in the confident way she moved throughout the guests of the party, champagne flute in hand.

She’d grown up since the last time he saw her, and he ignored the guilt that his rather strong reaction to her presence stirred up in him. He watched as she moved from person to person chatting and laughing, eyes shining. He watched as she noticed him standing near the edge of the room, as her smile grew and the direction of her long strides changed to bring them closer.

“Hi, Harry!” She started to speak as soon as he’d be able to hear her, eyes dipping down to trace his body in a wholly un-self-conscious way that made him blush. “I heard you were joining us in Andromeda.”

“It’s good to see you again, Chloe,” he said, trying to keep his embarrassment out of his tone. It seemed to work because Chloe just leaned in and kissed his cheek in greeting as he continued, “You look… well.”

If she heard his hesitation, the way he stumbled over how to describe her, she didn’t mention that either. Her hand lingered on his arm as she stayed close to him. “You do, too,” she said and squeezed his arm where her hand still rested. His fingers closed around her forearm out of instinct; her skin felt too warm, and he briefly worried about a fever before he remembered her biotics.

“Are you here with anyone?” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts and turned his attention from his fingers on her skin back to her face. She was gazing at him with her full lips twisted into a little smirk, and she took a half-step closer to him when he shook his head. “Heading off to Andromeda by yourself, Harry? Stepping out into the vast unknown?”

She was leaning even closer, her intentions broadcasted with every movement and shining clearly through her eyes. He should have pushed her away, turned her down gently. A romantic entanglement, even of the one-night variety, would be a decidedly bad idea. They’re going to be working together on the Pathfinder team, for one, alongside her father and brother, for reasons two and three.

But when was the last time a woman like her looked at him _like that_? It was like she was ready to eat him alive.

His mouth opened to make some excuse, but he found himself telling her the truth. “It is just me. Uh, now it is. My divorce just got finalized last month.”

Her eyebrows lifted at the admission, almost reaching the lines of the white tattoo near her hairline. She didn’t have that the last time he saw her. “I didn’t know you were--” she trailed off, but at least she didn’t pull away from him completely. Her fingers were still gripping his shirt sleeve.

“I’m not anymore.” He squeezed her arm, but he didn’t mean to. His face heated, but her eyes sparkled at him. Movement behind her caught his attention, and he glanced over her shoulder to see Vic heading straight for them. She turned too, looking even farther to see Alec not far behind Vic.

“Goddamn,” she muttered, releasing his arm to hold her drink with that hand instead. He stood up straighter, keeping an eye on Alec with shame building in his gut. His friend’s _daughter._ How could he have let her flirt with him like that?

Vic reached them first, a matching tattoo on his forehead nearly disappearing under white-gray hair, and greeted Harry with a warm smile and a wink. _He_ obviously didn’t care what his sister got up to in her free time. “Hey, Doc, I need to borrow my sister for a minute.”

Harry shrugged, glancing from one twin to the other before speaking. “Sure thing. She’s all yours.”

Vic winked at him again before ushering Chloe away. Harry stayed where he was, gaze moving back and forth between them and Alec, who intercepted them just out of hearing range. Chloe whispered something in Vic’s ear that Alec couldn’t hear, making Vic cover his face to hide his laughter.

None of them looked back at him, and he was able to disappear.

They didn’t see each other again until Andromeda, and she slept through the first several weeks. It was easy then to only think of her as Alec’s daughter, his unconscious patient, and forget the flirtatious and beautiful young woman who had kissed his cheek and held onto his arm back in the Milky Way.

It was easy for the first few days after she finally regained consciousness, too, what with how weak she was. She needed a doctor to help her get better, not some creepy old man reading too much into a few things she said when she was probably tipsy 600 years ago.

Watching her during her physical therapy appointment was a mistake. He knew it when he was walking her down the hall after his shift was over, he knew it as he was standing there, and he knows it now. The pain and frustration on her face when she couldn’t walk the way she could before her coma, when she wasn’t as strong as she knew she should be, made his chest hurt.

No. It made his _heart_ hurt. That’s hard to blame on the kind of care a doctor should have for his patient. It isn’t even the kind of feeling he should have for a friend or the _daughter_ of a friend. He wants to take care of her and take the pain away. He wants to take her back to an apartment bigger than a shoebox, run her a bubble bath, and let her soak away the aches from her muscles. He wants to make her dinner and pour her a drink so they can talk about their days.

Basically, he’s _fucked_ and not in a good way.

He rolls over onto his back and throws one arm over his eyes, sighing heavily once he settles again.

He’ll have to talk to Dr. Thorne on his next shift. He can’t let Chloe stay his patient while he feels like this. It’s best to just… put some space between them.

\---

Chloe only keeps her mouth from gaping with an act of sheer will. Instead, she blinks at Harry with slow movements, eyebrows arched, fingernails digging into her palms from where her hands are curled into fists. Harry just stares at her with a pleasantly bland expression, a little tightness around his eyes the only sign that he might be as uncomfortable with the conversation as she is.

“You were right yesterday,” he says, voice calm enough to just make her more irritated. “I spoke to Dr. Thorne about it this morning, and we both agree that you don’t need me in your hair all the time. The only thing you need, now, is more physical therapy, and Dr. Thorne is more than capable of handling that without interference from me.”

She blinks again, still slowly, then squints at him. “You don’t want to be my doctor anymore?”

Harry presses his lips together for an instant before responding. “You don’t _need_ me to be your doctor anymore.”

She tries to read the expression on his face, to judge the intent behind this sudden change. He’s been very involved in her care since day one -- even if she didn’t have hazy half-memories of Harry’s voice during her coma, she has pictures from Vic to prove that Harry sat at her bedside when he was off-duty to read to her… and now all of a sudden he doesn’t want to see her anymore? It can’t be because he’s too busy, she knows how many patients are in the medbay -- is it because he’s tired of worrying about her?

She can’t figure out how to ask without sounding like a pouting kid.

“You’ll be fine.” Harry lowers his voice and leans in a little rubbing his palms together between his knees. “You don’t need me.”

She drums her fingers on the thin, crinkly foam masquerading as a mattress. “Okay, but what if I want you around, Harry?” He freezes, so she tries: “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Chloe...” He sighs and rubs one hand over his face. Her stomach twists.

“As soon as I can stand up for more than thirty seconds at a time, we should go to that bar Scott told me about, the one in the docking bay? The Vortex?” Each sentence pitches up at the end turning them into questions she doesn’t mean. She hates the way it makes her sound: girlish, uncertain, not at all the confident woman she was when she left the Milky Way, the one who approached Harry at the launch party with the sole intention of getting him into her bed before being cockblocked by her father.

“When you can walk, I’m sure Vic would love to take you to the Vortex,” Harry says, finally making eye contact with her again. His eyes are so sharp, so striking -- so shadowed right now that she wonders when the last time was that he got a full night’s sleep. “I’m sure he knows someone more… age-appropriate. One of the others on his team, maybe.”

 _Oh_.

“Fine.” She sets her jaw and really does sound like a pouting kid now. To her absolute horror, she feels the prick of tears in her eyes, and suddenly she can’t be more in a hurry to get him to leave her alone. She clears her throat and turns away from him, activating her omnitool like she suddenly has pressing business to attend to. “Thanks for everything, Dr. Carlyle.”

He grimaces, but whether it’s from hearing his title from her lips (like she hopes) or because she’s annoying him now (like she suspects), she doesn’t know.

He stands and walks to the door that separates her tiny room from the rest of the medbay. He hovers there for a moment, hand on the knob, and just looks at her flicking aimlessly through menus on her omnitool. “I’ll see you around, Chloe,” he says, voice almost too quiet for her to hear.

She doesn’t answer.

As soon as the door closes behind him, she sends a message request through to Vic. He answers after just a couple of rings, initiating a vid call, and she scrunches her face up into a smile that he immediately sees through.

“What’s wrong?” Vic’s voice is a little tinny through the little speakers, but she gasps out a little laugh even as a tear escapes.

“Nothing in the scheme of things,” she answers. “I just missed you. How’ve you been doing?”

He narrows his eyes at her but doesn’t push the issue. “Super busy. I think we’ll get to come back to the Nexus to see you soon, though!”

“Where are you now?”

“The settlement on Eos.” Something in the background catches Vic’s attention, and he twists around to look. Whatever he sees makes his whole face light up in a smile, and after just another second, Chloe sees why. Jaal’s face appears in the tiny screen projected from her omnitool, a wide grin on his face.

“Hello, _sholaon!_ ” Jaal always sounds as enthusiastic to greet her as he did the first time they met, and she smiles back at him as he settles in behind Vic. It’s only now that she realizes Vic’s sitting in his bed, and now Jaal is cradled behind him. Vic leans against Jaal’s chest with a content little smile that makes the tears come back again. “Vic says you are feeling well.”

“Uhh--yeah. I think I’ll get to move into my own apartment soon.” Her voice is watery; she can hear it, but she can’t do anything about it. Both men frown at her through the call.

“What happened, sister?” Vic’s voice leaves no room for argument -- she’s _going_ to tell him what happened. She wonders vaguely if this is his Pathfinder voice, if this is the voice he uses to get colonists and aliens to agree to whatever his demands of the day are.

But those ponderings are just stalling for time.

“Nothing _really,_ ” she says. Vic opens his mouth to argue, but she plunges ahead: “Harry doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

“When did you start seeing each other?”

“Not like _that_ . He doesn’t want to be my doctor anymore, but when I asked if we could hang out _anyway_ , he said you’d find me someone more ‘age appropriate’.” She rolls her eyes to hide the tears that threaten to fall again. She’s never cried so much over something so dumb. Not since she was a teenager, anyway. “It’s stupid. I’m just tired of being stuck here.”

Jaal blinks his big eyes at her and Vic’s frown is sympathetic. “I didn’t think it was like that,” Vic says.

“I didn’t either, really.” She sounds miserable even to her own ears. “I’m being stupid, like I said. I’m just… ready to get out there with you guys! It’s boring to be stuck here all the time.”

“You are lonely,” Jaal observes. Chloe clears her throat and nods once. “I will visit with you when we dock at the Nexus.”

“Aww, thanks Jaal.” Chloe rustles up a smile for him, and he beams back at her. Vic smiles too, happy that his sister and his boyfriend are getting along so well. “I’d love that.”

“And as soon as you get your strength back, you can join us! I’m sure you could teach the guys a thing or two.” A pause, then hesitantly: “Liam, I think, might like to have a drink with you.”

She forces another smile. She _did_ bring this up. “Perhaps I would like to have a drink with Liam, too, then.” She doesn’t even know who Liam is.  

Even in the tiny vidscreen, Chloe can see Jaal and Vic shifting a little, getting more comfortable. Jaal nuzzles his face into Vic’s hair, and Chloe takes that as her subtle clue to get the fuck off the phone so they can go to bed.

“I’ll talk to you later, you guys,” she says. “Have a good night, and let me know when you’re on the way here. I’ll make sure I’m wearing pants this time.”

“Night, Chloe,” Vic says, and Jaal echoes his statement. Chloe sees them kiss once as the image cuts out, and that makes the tears come back once more. She hides them behind both hands.

Jaal was right. She _is_ lonely.

\---

Chloe knows sneaking out of the medbay was a bad idea as soon as she sits down in the tram, limbs shaking and a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. She can walk short distances by herself just fine, and her physical therapy appointments have taken a turn to building stamina by putting her on a treadmill for short strolls, but clearly walking at a normal pace for a hundred meters is just _too damn much_ for her body to take these days.

It’s infuriating.

All she wants to do is see the Nexus for herself, to see her new home instead of being stuck in the medbay all the time. They’ve told her she can move into her new apartment soon -- she can stand long enough to shower for herself now, and cooking shouldn’t prove too much of a challenge -- but she still has to take a wheelchair on longer expeditions.

It’s infuriating and _embarrassing._ She’s never had this much trouble doing anything in her whole life, and she’s goddamn tired of it.

At least the tram is empty -- not a lot of people moving around when it isn’t shift change -- so she can put her head in her hands and groan as it whisks her through the tunnels that connect the Hyperion, Nexus, and Paarchero together.

The shaking has subsided somewhat by the time the tram arrives at its destination in the Hyperion’s residential bay, and pure stubbornness drives her forward. The tram chimes gently at her as she shuffles forward, reminding her that it needs to leave, and she rolls her eyes at the noise. As soon as she’s on the other side, the doors slide closed and it slips away to go pick up another traveler somewhere on the station.

Chloe pushes herself forward, one hand on the smooth wall at all times, holding herself up and giving herself the strength to continue even as her legs start shaking again. There’s an apartment waiting for her somewhere here, somewhere near the one reserved for the Pathfinder, and she’s going to see it _today._

She has to stop a few times along the way, sitting on benches or leaning against walls and waving off the concerned offers of help she gets from the occasional passerby, but she eventually makes it to the door her omnitool tells her is assigned to _Chloe M. Ryder, Pathfinder Team_.

Vic’s room would have been across the hall, but he got upgraded to the actual Pathfinder’s room near SAM node. Her room is small, designed for one person who won’t be spending much time on the station, but it has a bathroom and a kitchen and a bedroom separate from the rest of the apartment. A terminal and vid screen are facing an L-shaped couch, but Chloe doesn’t have that much time to admire anything before she reaches the couch and collapses face-first onto the cushions.

Her muscles are screaming, and sweat has dampened the back of her shirt and under her arms. Maybe a little nap will help her cool down and dry off, and then she can take a shower in her _own_ shower for once. Her belongings should have been moved into her bedroom out of storage, but she’ll have to check that later.

Not right now.

Now.

Sleep.

\---

“ _Dr. Carlyle._ ” SAM’s voice makes Harry jump and slosh lukewarm coffee over the edge of his mug and onto the datapad he was reading. “ _I believe Chloe is in some distress._ ”

“Huh?” Harry’s head swivels to stare at one of his office walls as though he’ll be able to see down the hallways and into Chloe’s private medbay room from where he’s sitting. He blinks once, then stares down at his softly glowing omnitool. “What’s wrong?”

“ _She is in her apartment at 67H-147, where she went against the advice of Dr. Thorne. She is experiencing muscle spasms and cannot walk back to the medbay._ ”

Harry’s on his feet before SAM has time to finish explaining the situation, and he’s on the tram before he realizes he should have grabbed a wheelchair. If she’s in pain like SAM said, it’s likely she pushed herself much too hard and is dehydrated, so getting her back to the medbay for food and water is the most important thing. A wheelchair would be the fastest way to do that, but… the uniformly gray walls of the elevator shaft are already whizzing by.

He stands right by the door, holding onto one of the overhead straps until the tram slows and stops, the doors opening to free him. He jogs down the hallways, looking for the apartment number SAM indicated. It only takes a second to find it, and the door opens when he presses his hand against the control panel. Unlocked.

Their apartments aren’t too dissimilar, but hers might even be a little bigger. Their couches are in the same place across from the door, and so it takes him no time at all to find her stretched out on her back with one of her calves firmly clasped in her hands.

She tries to sit up as he enters her room, but she grimaces and falls back down with a soft groan.

“Harry.” Her voice is mostly flat, free of the irritation he had been worried about, but tinged with pain for what he can see is, as SAM said, a muscle spasm.

“SAM called me,” he says, inviting himself the rest of the way into her room. “He said you were _in distress._ ”

She grunts. “It’s just a charley horse,” she says, still trying to rub the offending muscle into obedience. She won’t look at him, but he sits down at her feet anyway.

“Let me help,” he says, simple and straightforward, and holds his hand out. After just a second of teeth-grinding hesitation, she stretches her leg towards him and places her calf in his hand. He bends her knee more and presses his thumb into the offending muscle, massaging softly as she throws one arm over her face to hide her eyes in the crook of her elbow. Her full lips twist into a frown, and he stares at them while he tries to ease her pain.

 

And then he catches himself staring and tears his eyes away, looking down at his hands as they work. Every time her muscle twitches in another painful spasm, he can feel her leg jerk in his grip, but he holds her firmly and doesn’t let her pull away.

After another few seconds, he feels her whole body relax as the pain finally subsides.

“What are you doing here?” Harry’s question comes before he releases her leg, his skillful fingers still gently massaging.

Her frown turns into a grimace. “I wanted to see my apartment. What are _you_ doing here?” She jumps a little, apparently realizing he’s still touching her, and sits up even as she pulls away. When she’s fully upright, a whole cushion is between them and her face is hard.

It’s nothing more than he asked for, yet he still hates it.

“I came to help you back to the medbay, where you belong.”

She doesn’t _quite_ roll her eyes, but it’s a near thing. “I thought I’m not your patient anymore.”

The pleasant expression he’d kept on his face slips finally, and he sighs, resolve wavering. But… her anger is better for them both than her flirting and hopeful glances, even if it’s vastly more painful.

“Chloe…” He trails off, completely uncertain what to say to make this situation any better.

She rubs at one eye, then leans her elbow against the back of the couch and props her cheek on her fist as she stares at him. “I just wanted some time to myself, Harry. I wanted to be alone for just a few minutes.”

“You’ve been gone for hours.”

She grimaces, looks away. “I fell asleep.”

He takes another moment to just study her, the way she’s curled up against the arm of the couch with her feet tucked up under herself, shadows under her eyes, stark white Alliance shirt contrasting against her warm brown skin, dark hair curling at the nape of her neck and over her white tattoo.

She’s beautiful.

She deserves more than an old man like him.

He stands, and she flinches like she forgot he was standing there. He reaches out one hand for her, and she glares at it.

“Let me help you back, Chloe. Another couple of weeks in the medbay, and you’ll never have to see me again.” He means it as a joke. He even smiles as he says it, but it makes her lip curl up into a snarl for a moment before she schools her expression into something more neutral.

Her smaller hand slips into his and she stands, slightly favoring the leg that hadn’t been cramping, and lets him tuck his arm around her waist to keep her upright.

“I hope you don’t throw your back out before we get there,” she mutters, leaning against him a little harder as her legs start to shake while they wait for the tram. “I don’t think I can carry you.” Harry doesn’t respond to that, too acutely aware of how warm her body is pressed against his to form words. She taps her foot on the tile floor. “How did you even know I was gone?” She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and he quickly tears his gaze away from hers.

“SAM called me,” he says, voice quiet. He stares at the light that tells him how far away the tram is. It isn’t coming fast enough.

“Oh, SAM,” she sighs. “You traitor.”

“ _My apologies, Chloe,_ ” comes SAM’s mechanical voice. He doesn’t sound particularly apologetic to Harry, but it can be hard to tell. The AI still makes him uncomfortable. “ _I did not believe you could make it back to the medbay alone._ ” A pause, then he adds: “ _Perhaps next time you leave the medbay against medical advice, you should take a wheelchair._ ”

Chloe barks out a laugh and then claps her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. Harry wants her to laugh again, and only a moment later he gets his wish. She lowers her hand and giggles, relaxing against him for just a heartbeat until the tram doors finally slide open.

“That’s not terrible advice,” Harry informs her, though he’d truthfully rather her not sneak out of the hospital wing. There’s a _reason_ they haven’t released her yet. In the tram, she reaches for one of the chairs and he lets her sink into it before sitting across the aisle from her. She crosses her arms and stares back at him, silent.

“I guess SAM’s good for something after all,” she says. “A regular knight in shining source code.”

“ _Thank you, Chloe_.” She giggles again, smile wide and bright, though she looks away from Harry even so. This laughter isn’t for him.

The rest of the ride is silent. Harry watches the elevator shaft slipping by while Chloe plays on her omnitool, sending a message to someone if he’s judging the blurry back of the interface right. She doesn’t say anything else, but she does accept his help when the tram stops again in the medbay and chimes politely at them to hurry them out.

If she leans against him a bit more heavily this time, surely it’s because she’s tired from all the walking. Perhaps it’s even his imagination playing tricks on him -- dirty tricks that are going to haunt him later when he’s alone in his room, guilt at his actions doing little to change the way he’ll remember how her body feels against his.

He snags the closest wheelchair just the same. She sinks into it without complaint, though her hand lingers a little too long on his arm as she moves herself.

She needs to be cleared to leave the medbay soon, for _both_ their sakes.

\---

By the time Vic and his crew make it back to the Nexus again, she’s strong enough to have earned her discharge the day before from the medbay. She leaves with her belongings in a little crate and doesn’t speak to Harry on her way out.

He’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to be around her, that she’s too young for him, that she needs to find someone her _own_ age, blah blah. Trying to be friendly with him didn’t work either -- she still thinks about his hands working the kink out of her leg and how firm his body felt when she was leaning against him as they walked from her apartment, and they hadn’t even had skin-to-skin contact.

So what if he fills most of her thoughts now that she’s almost done with her PT? So what if she looks up when she’s in the middle of doing a difficult exercise, hoping to catch his little smile, only to remember that he doesn’t come to watch her appointments anymore? So what if she spends her first night truly alone on the Hyperion with her hand between her legs and the memory of his husky laugh in her mind?

It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want her, and nothing she does is going to change that.

Vic does set her up with Liam during their shore leave, though it’s a blessedly casual encounter. The two of them, along with Jaal and Vic, join up with Gil for a few rounds of poker and drinks. All the boys are fun to be around, laughing and joking and telling stories about the things they’ve seen out in Heleus, but it leaves her with a bad taste in her mouth.

She wants to be out there with them, but she isn’t up to fighting shape yet, especially not with the way she likes to charge into the thick of things. Their stories make her jealous, and even though Liam is cute and offers her a bright smile whenever she says anything even remotely funny, his aren’t the eyes she wants peering back at her over a dinner table.

She tells Vic that, another time, when they’re alone catching up in her brand new apartment. They both have drinks, though Chloe gets tipsy long before Vic does with her diminished tolerance from bedrest, and they both sit with their feet tucked up on either end of the couch.

“It’s shitty,” she says, resting her cheek on the cushions as she stares at him. She can feel the tears coming and resolves to drink some water before she starts drunk-girl crying. “I am at my _wit's end._ I don’t want to feel this way. I just want to be _happy._ ”

It’s too late. The tears escape without her permission and she wipes her nose with the back of her free hand.

“Oh, Chloe,” Vic sighs. “What happened to you?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, but I _don’t like it._ ” She pauses and wipes her face dry with her sleeve only to have more tears slip free. “I just wanted to, like, get him into bed at first, but he’s actually really nice and funny and I can’t stop thinking about him.” Her voice cracks and more tears fall. “I’m stupid.”

“Wanting to be happy isn’t stupid,” Vic says, voice quiet. “You deserve to be happy.”

“I _do_ deserve to be happy!” She sits up suddenly, glaring past Vic at her door. “I want to leave the Hyperion. Take me with you on the Tempest when it leaves.”

He leans forward and takes her drink away from her. She lets it go with only a little pout in protest. “Next time, probably. You still need to do some training to get ready to fight the kett. Kandros will work with you. I’ll take you when he says you’re ready.”

She thinks about that, eyes moving from the door to his face. “Kandros… the head of the militia? The turian you told me about?”

“That’s the one. He already agreed to help you once you’re strong enough to go to the training area.” He smiles at her, pleased that she’s perking up at last.

Her mouth makes a little “o” as she considers this offer. “You had a crush on him at first.”

Vic shrugs, unashamed. “He’s hot. You know how those turian voices are. Anyway, he’ll help you with your fighting and maybe with a little stress relief if you play your cards right. Sounds like a win-win.”

Chloe considers this again, then nods. “Okay. Okay, cool. I’m going to bed now. Go back to your giant boyfriend.”

She stands and, ignoring everything else, shuffles off to her bedroom.

“You sure you’re okay?” Vic asks, standing too and slipping his feet back into his shoes.

“Uh huh. Go away so I can take off my pants.”

He does, snickering under his breath as he moves. As soon as Chloe’s alone, she pushes her pants down and steps out of them, pulling her shirt off at the same time. She leaves both pieces of clothing on the floor and flops forward onto her mattress -- big enough for two people if she can ever get someone back here -- and the feeling of loneliness makes her chest ache once again.

She fights against it for a long moment, exactly as long as she can hold her breath, and then she releases it with a little hiccuping sob.

Why is it so hard for her to be _happy?_

\---

Freedom from the medbay doesn’t mean freedom from PT or training. Chloe drags herself out of bed to the soft dinging of her alarm and forces herself to get ready for the day while going over her conversation with Vic in her mind.

She remembers the crying just as she’s rinsing toothpaste out of her mouth, and she lets out an embarrassed groan into the little bathroom. She hasn’t cried like that over a guy since high school, and to do it now when there are so many bigger things to worry about?

_Embarrassing._

She hurries through the rest of her morning routine and chokes down an energy bar for breakfast on her way back to the medbay for the latest treatment plan concocted by Dr. Throne -- morning yoga classes. They’re good for strength training and flexibility -- both things she’s going to need out in the field with Vic -- but it means more opportunities to run into Harry, something she’s now determined to avoid.

Especially after last night’s breakdown. She’s not about that life.

The yoga class, taught on a volunteer basis by one of the asari recently rescued from the Leusinia, is already getting started by the time Chloe pushes into the room. She takes up a position near the back, taking just a moment to peer at the other students before slipping into position.

Listening to the soft music in the background and to Nira’s soft commands to switch from one position to the next makes it easy for Chloe to relax. Her headache slowly dissipates as her muscles begin to stretch and burn and sweat begins to bead along her forehead and back.

A full hour passes before she realizes it, slipping away as she focuses wholly on the way her body moves and supports itself, making adjustments to the positions when weaker muscles can’t hold herself up the way they could back in the Milky Way.

She doesn’t let herself get angry about it. She’s on the mend. She can start lifting weights and shooting and sparring soon -- until then, getting a little too sweaty at asari yoga isn’t too bad.

The door to their little room opens, drawing Chloe out of her reverie, and she glances over to see Harry and Thorne standing in the opening. Thorne is talking in a low voice, too low for Chloe to hear from the back of the room, but Harry’s eyes are on her. She pulls her gaze away as soon as she meets his, following Nira’s directions to begin transitioning into a headstand.

She can’t hold it for long, and she can’t bend her legs apart like the woman next to her, but it’s better than the first time she took the class, and she catches a smile from the teacher when she carefully returns to child’s pose.

Harry’s still standing there when she looks up again. This time, he has the grace to look away.

When the class ends, Chloe lingers, taking a few extra minutes to cool down and let the rest of the students leave. Even Nira clears out, but Chloe can hear her greeting Harry on her way out the door.

He’s still here. He must want to talk again about something.

The man sure does have a lot to say to her considering he’s made it _excruciatingly_ clear he doesn’t want to be around her _or_ provide her with medical care.

She wipes her face with her little towel and then rests it around her neck before turning to face him. If her feet are dragging a little on her way, heels scuffing against the floor, who can really blame her? She holds onto both ends of the towel and tilts her head a bit to the side as she looks up at Harry, jaw set and face hard.

He sighs.

“You’re looking good, Chloe,” he says, and sighs again when she arches her eyebrows at him. “I mean -- you seem a lot stronger since the last time we talked. Dr. Thorne agrees.”

“...cool.” Chloe isn’t really sure what to say to that. “I thought you didn’t want to be my doctor anymore, Harry. Didn’t you get tired of me while I was in my coma?”

He grimaces and glances over his shoulder. None of the other medbay staff is close enough to hear their conversation, but they’re in full view if anyone happens to glance down the hallway. Chloe doesn’t move to hide, but neither does he before speaking again.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to be around you, Chloe,” Harry says, voice low. He closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath before meeting her gaze again. “You just made it clear that you… greatly preferred my company, and--”

“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” Chloe interrupts. “I didn’t realize you were so uninterested.” She sounds more bitter than she meant to, but she just lets that hang there. She _is_ bitter, she just meant to keep it to herself so he wouldn’t feel bad… but maybe Harry feeling a little guilty for hurting her feelings isn’t the worst thing that could happen right now.

“That’s not it either.” Another pause, another glance over his shoulder. “Dating a patient is a great way to lose your medical license.”

Chloe blinks hard, arching her eyebrows again and rocking back on her heels. “I don’t think they can afford to be picky about who’s practicing medicine out here.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s still an ethical violation.” Harry’s response is immediate, and Chloe looks down at her feet. The emotions of last night well in her chest again, and she’s afraid she’s going to start crying right here in front of Harry. “I thought… well, I thought that if I wasn’t your doctor, you’d forget about me.”

He stops talking then, as though that confession should make her understand or help her feel better. She lets the silence grow between them for a long moment until she sees him shuffle his weight from one foot to the other and back again, then she looks up at him and allows all of her hurt shine through her eyes.

“I don’t want your pity,” she snaps, voice low and dangerous. Harry leans away from her, lips parting, but she continues, “It’s fine if you’re not attracted to me, or whatever; I’m an adult. It won’t be the first time a guy’s turned me down and it probably won’t be the last. I can handle it. But it would be _easier_ if you actually stayed away from me when you say you don’t want to be around me. I only have to stay on the Nexus until Kandros says I’m in fighting shape, and then you won’t ever have to see me again.”

Her tirade over, she pushes past him and starts to stalk away. Her sneakers squeak on the tile floor, and she glares down at them for the three steps she manages to take before Harry’s fingers close around her hand.

“Chloe, wait.” She looks down at their hands, at his thumb brushing her knuckles, then finally meets his gaze. “Can I finish, please?”

She nods, once, and he tugs her a step closer. She lets him pull her, trying to guess what he has to say to her after all of this. He just looks at her, those sharp green eyes boring into hers until she sucks in a breath to speak again, patience gone.

“Attraction isn’t the problem here,” he explains, shifting his hand to entwine their fingers together. “I have… you’re beautiful, sweetheart, and you’re strong and you’re clever…” Her face feels hot, and she stops breathing completely when he lifts his hand to cup her jaw. She leans into the touch, listing forward on her toes and grasping his wrist with her free hand to hold him against her. “This isn’t about me not being attracted to you.”

“What’s it about then?” She’s looking at his lips, watching as he wets them.

“I’m too old for you.” He says it simply, like it’s an unarguable fact, like she hasn’t also considered the difference between their ages when she was lying awake at night thinking about how he didn’t want to be around her anymore. “You need someone your age, someone who can keep up with you, not someone who will hold you back.”

“What makes you think you’ll hold me back?” They’re standing _so close_ now, Harry doing as much to hold her away from him as he is to hold her close. “You make me _better_. I’d like to do the same for you if you’ll let me.”

Her answer seems to catch him off guard, because his grip on her jaw relaxes enough that she’s able to take the chance and lean forward to close the distance between them. Their mouths meet for the first time in a soft brushing of lips that makes Chloe actually whimper at the contact. Harry chases the noise, yanking her closer until their bodies are pressed tight together, kissing her back until her lips part on a desperate gasp for air.

They break apart and then come back together for one more kiss, this one more a peck than anything else, and then Harry kisses the point of her tattoo that peeks out from under her hairline before he releases her and takes a step back, putting a little space between them.

 

He’s smiling at her, and she knows she has a goofy grin on her face too, but she can’t bring herself to care.

He kissed her _back._

He drops his hands back to his sides, fingers flexing, and the sudden cold air against her neck reminds her of exactly what she’d been doing before he found her and exactly why there’s a towel slung around her shoulders.

“Oh my god.” Embarrassment washes over her in a wave. He couldn’t have waited to do this until after she’d had a shower? “Gross. Here.” She grabs her towel from her neck and offers it to him, and he takes it with a grin so wide that she can see his teeth contrasting white against his skin.

“It’s _fine_ ,” he assures her, though he still looks far too amused for her comfort as he dries his hands and loops her towel back around her neck. “Although… can we talk more later? My shift doesn’t end until 20:00, but we could have dinner.” A pause where he glances over her shoulder out at the medbay proper. “Somewhere with a bit more privacy.”

She turns to look too and sighs when she sees a pair of nurses suddenly finding a datapad _very_ interesting. “Yeah,” she says, turning back to face Harry. He’s already looking at her, a softer smile on his face than the one that had been there a moment before. “Yeah, okay. Just… message me whenever you’re free.” He nods at her, and after just a second of hesitation, she leans forward and kisses him once more, just in case he changes his mind again before they get a chance to talk things out.

She ducks her head and turns away, avoiding both his gaze and the gaze of the nurses who _definitely_ saw their earlier kiss. That’s Harry’s problem now. He can deal with it before going back to work.

\---

The rest of Chloe’s day is spent in much the same way all of her other days are spent since being released to her own apartment. She tidies it, throwing away the bottles and cups left out from her little party with Vic, then cleans by wiping down all the surfaces and sweeping imaginary crumbs out of her kitchen. She plays music through the little speaker system in her room, singing along to songs that are now more than 600 years out of date.

She spends some time reading Vic’s reports and looking at vids and photos, trying to catch up on everything that went down during her recovery so that she can get right to it whenever she’s released for duty. She studies the kett most of all, curious about how exaltation works while simultaneously wishing she’d taken more science classes.

She showers, too, still embarrassed by getting sweat all over Harry during their first kiss. She actually showers twice -- once as soon as she walks into her apartment, and again later, a little more thoroughly, taking the time to shave and pamper herself the way she would before a date back in the Milky Way.

And if she gets dumped again, then… at least she has the comfort of smooth legs and soft hair that smells like vanilla.

She doesn’t have anything cute to wear beyond a loose blue tank top and leggings, so she puts those on and stays barefoot as she curls up on her couch in exactly the same spot where she’d had to feel his warm hands on her leg and listen to him say she’ll never have to see him again once she got discharged.

 _Asshole_.

She messages Vic as she waits, filling him in on the conversation she had with Harry after yoga class, skipping the sweaty details when mentioning the kiss.

His response is immediate.

 _To: C. Ryder_ _  
_ _From: V. Ryder_

_It’s about damn time. I told him to get his head out of his ass because he was hurting you. I hope you guys work something out!! Jaal wants us all to get drinks together. Let me know when you guys are up for it._

She stares down at the message, a little prick of doubt beginning to swirl in her stomach.

Vic talked to Harry about all of this? When? After she cried about being unhappy? Did he _tell_ Harry about the crying and the unhappiness? Is that why Harry finally decided to look past his own bullshit and hangups about their age difference? Because Vic _told_ him to?

 _To: V. Ryder_ _  
_ _From: C. Ryder_

_Excuse me you told him what now??_

She sends the message and then sits back to wait, chewing on one well-filed fingernail. Vic doesn’t respond right away, even though his last message had come fast, and no amount of glaring at the orange interface will make him go any quicker.

She’s still waiting for a response when she gets a message from Harry, explaining that he’s just going to shower and change and then they can meet up anywhere she wants. It’s tempting to ask him to meet her at the Vortex like she’d suggested weeks ago before he turned her down the first time, but instead she tells him to just come to her apartment since he already knows where it is and they can decide together.

It takes him thirty more minutes to arrive. Vic still hasn’t messaged her.

The door opens when he requests it, and Chloe unfolds herself from the ball she’d curled into on the couch while she waited. He’s out of his medical uniform and in a pair of dark slacks, dark shirt, and shoes that look _sharp_ on him, and she grins as she remembers the moment she saw him at the Nexus launch party and decided then that she needed him to fuck her before they went into cryo.

And just look at how far they’ve come.

He stops walking as soon as he sees her, and they just stare at each other without speaking as her music continues to play from her darkened vidscreen.

“Hello.” Harry speaks first, a little chuckle at the end of his greeting.

Chloe has a lot of things to say, and when she opens her mouth she plans to ask him to sit down, but what comes out is, “You’re not too old for me.” She blinks in surprise at herself, snapping her jaw shut.

Harry’s eyebrows arch. “I’m not?”

She shakes her head. “Come sit down. Do you want anything to drink? I have, uh…” She glances toward her little kitchen. “Water. And some scotch Vic got me as a housewarming gift, but it isn’t very good.”

Harry obeys, walking across to the couch with long strides. He sits down in the same spot where he massaged her leg and rests his hands in his lap. “Water’s fine,” he says, and watches as Chloe walks around the back of the couch to get to the fridge.

“Good choice,” she says, filling two glasses with clear, cool, recycled water. “I think the scotch is from Kadara.”

Harry laughs but doesn’t speak again until Chloe sits next to him on the couch, taking up the center cushion rather than leaving space between them. He turns a little to face her, stretching one arm out along the back of the couch so that his hand is resting on the cushion beside her shoulder, but he doesn’t touch her. Not yet.

She puts her water down on the table without drinking it. “I know that’s your, like, big hangup here,” she says, tucking one foot under her and turning to face him too. “The age difference. You’re not that much older than I am. You’re younger than _both_ of my parents were.”

“It’s not about your parents,” he says, though that’s only partially true. He _was_ friends with Alec, after all, though they weren’t all that close. “It’s about the differences in what we’ve gone through. I was married for ten years. I’d almost finished high school by the time you were born. That’s a big difference.”

Chloe lets him express his concerns, but she speaks as soon as he pauses for breath. “Yeah. Those are big differences, but I nursed my mom as she was dying from cancer, was in the Alliance for five years, and saw combat. We both have our experiences.”

She pauses to see if he has any more arguments. When he doesn’t speak right away, she continues: “You didn’t watch me grow up. You’re not my teacher or my boss or my CO. You’re not my doctor anymore, and the next time I get sick or injured, you won’t be the doctor I go to for help. In just a couple weeks, I’m going to leave the Nexus to fight the kett and I don’t have any guarantees that I’ll come back.”

This is what makes Harry look up at her again, his beautiful face twisting into a grimace. Chloe doesn’t stop to let him speak, though, continuing despite the feeling of his fingers finally brushing against her bare shoulder.

“If _that_ is a reason you don’t think we should pursue… this,” she waves her hand between them in a vague motion, unwilling to put a name to the _thing_ growing between them until she knows whether or not Harry is planning on staying or breaking her heart for good, “then that’s fine. It would suck, but I’d get it. I _don’t_ get the age difference thing. We should still try.”

“Is that what you want?” Harry asks, voice almost quiet enough to be called a whisper. His eyes bore into hers, searching for something she hopes he’ll find. “To try?”

She wrinkles her nose at the question, and his smile grows at the sight. “Obviously, Harry. _I_ asked _you_ out _,_ I kissed _you,_ I invited _you_ back to my apartment. The question is what _you_ want to do.”

He hesitates again and she sits up straight so that his fingers are no longer distractingly on her skin. She reaches for her cup as an excuse, but she doesn’t relax back into the same position.

“I don’t want to play games. I just want to know what you want.”

He nods at her. “I do.”

She glares at him. “You do?”

He sighs heavily and leans forward so that his elbows are resting on his knees. “I want to try with you. I don’t know if it will work, and I still think you deserve someone better--” She rolls her eyes and makes a disgusted noise, but he ignores her and continues: “--but I meant what I said before. You’re a wonderful woman, and whatever time you’ll spend with me is worth it.”

“Did Vic talk to you?” It’s her last question, and she’s already itching to get her hands on him again, and she doesn’t even know why this matters right now, but--

Harry looks up before answering. “He… may have mentioned that I was doing more harm than good trying to make you to forget me.”

She grimaces and he chuckles. The noise makes her face heat again, and she shifts to lean a little closer to him as though drawn in by his laughter.

“Did he have his gun trained on you, or was that more of a casual discussion?”

Harry laughs again. “He didn’t threaten me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Chloe nods, biting her lower lip as she thinks. Harry’s eyes drop to her mouth, and that motion makes up her mind for her. She pushes herself up on her knees and swings one leg over his hips, settling easily in his lap.

He inhales sharply and rests his hands on her hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh through her leggings. She rests her arms on his shoulders as he leans back to make room for her, and she links her fingers together behind his head.

“So when did you decide that I’m, oh, what did you say…” She pauses as she pretends to think, running her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck. There’s a lot more gray in it then there had been the first time they met, even more than there was when they left the Milky Way, and it suits him. “Beautiful, strong, and clever?” She shifts her hips to press herself closer to him, and she can feel the way he shivers under her touch. His fingers tighten on her and pull her even closer, and she lets him.

“The first time I saw you,” he says, and Chloe rolls her eyes at him. “Really. You’re beautiful now, and you were then too. Then when you found me at the launch party? You looked like you wanted to eat me alive.”

She grins at him. “That was the plan, yeah. Think we can make up for lost time?” His eyes drop down to her lips and he nods, fast, and then their mouths are together once more.

The kiss they shared in the medbay was just a tease. This one is real, hard, enough to make Chloe curl her toes and dig her fingernails into his scalp to hold him closer. Harry groans deep in his chest and slides his hands up her back, holding her against his chest as he surges forward to chase her lips for kiss after kiss.

 

She parts her lips for him and groans as he nips at her lower lip, the same one he always sees her biting when she thinks. Their tongues meet as the kiss deepens, Chloe’s hips rocking against Harry’s in little jerky motions that tease more than they satisfy.

When he moves to kiss her neck, she tilts her head back and sighs. This was all she wanted at first, but the knowledge that he cares for her as much as she’s come to care for him…

His teeth sink into the crook of her neck without warning and she swears, a loud “ _Fuck,_ Harry,” right into his ear. He buries his pleased laugh into the skin warm skin of her throat before groaning when she retaliates by biting and then tugging on his earlobe.

He releases her when she pulls away, disentangling herself from his grasp only to grab his hand and pull until he’s standing too.

“Come on,” she says. “We have some lost time to make up for.” She turns and walks around the couch, pulling her tank top off over her head and dropping it to the floor behind her. Harry stays very still, watching the swaying of her hips and the curve of her ass and thighs before snapping himself out of it and chasing her through her apartment to her bedroom.

He catches up to her just before she reaches the bed, wrapping his arms around her to pull her flat against his chest. He kisses her neck again, trailing across to kiss the flowers inked onto her shoulder as she grinds against him.

He groans again and slides his hands up over her bare stomach to her breasts, cupping them through the simple cotton bra she’s wearing.

“You’re going to be the death of me.” The words are whispered in reverence as he stands up straight to undo the clasps holding her bra together and she leans forward a bit to continue grinding against him, doing her absolute best to distract and tease him as he works.

His fingers fumble against the fabric once, out of practice, before he manages to get the contraption off of her body. She tosses it away from them onto the floor and spins around to attack his shirt too, pulling it free of his pants and shoving it up his chest until he takes pity on her and yanks it off over his head.

“Damn, Harry.” She’s grinning at him, taking a moment to admire his form -- trim and fit in the way that shows he cares about his health without being overly concerned with developing showy muscles -- while allowing him the same opportunity.

She’s gorgeous and she always has been, but the sight of her gazing up at him with hungry eyes, chest confidently bared so that he can see small silver studs in her dark nipples, makes him shudder with want.

The moment passed, she runs her hands from his waist to his chest, skimming through dark hair and over flat nipples until she can hook her hands together behind his neck. She presses her bare chest against his and nips at his lips until he kisses her again and bends down and down until she has to crawl backward on the bed to make room.

Harry follows her, hair starting to fall over his forehead, and props himself up on his hands and knees as she reaches between them to tug his belt free of his pants. He watches her moving with confidence, a happy grin on her face and more light shining from her eyes than he’s ever seen before, and can’t stop himself from leaning down to capture her lips in yet another bruising kiss.

She laughs into it, still grinning, and hooks one arm around his neck to pull him down into the cradle of her thighs. He falls easily, drinking his fill from her lips before breaking away to kiss his way down her body.

She arches into each touch, one hand just resting on the back of his head as he moves to kiss her throat, then her collarbone, then the valley between her breasts. A gentle tug on his hair guides him to the right, to take one of her peaked nipples into his mouth until it’s tight with arousal and she’s squirming underneath him.

She’s vocal in her pleasure too, little gasps and moans and whines letting him know when he does something right. It makes him want to spend the rest of his life learning how to coax new noises from her and how to make her call his name again.

Inspired, he catches her nipple between his teeth and bites down on the soft flesh, tugging at the little piercing when his teeth catch on it.

His reward, a hissed “ _Shit_ ,” from somewhere above his head and a reflexive tug on his hair.

He switches between bites and open-mouthed kisses then, moving farther down her body until he has to sit up to pull her leggings down and out of his way. She releases her grip on his hair, stretching both arms above her head and tilting her hips up to help him get her finally, gloriously naked.

He takes a moment to sit back and admire her, his fingers tracing idle patterns on her thighs as she waits. She’s gorgeous -- always, but especially like this, vulnerable before him, needy for his touch.

When their eyes meet, she licks her lips before whispering, “Harry? Kiss me, please.”

He bends down to obey but presses his lips to the patch of short hair between her legs instead of to her lips where he suspects she wanted it. Her breath catches in her throat and she spreads her thighs a little wider so his shoulders will fit between them.

He flashes her a smile and settles as comfortably as he can with an erection still tucked into too-tight pants and then pressed into her mattress. He spreads her folds with two fingers and breathes in the arousal that’s making her glisten in the dim light of her apartment. He waits long enough for her to squirm and whine in his grip before ducking his head to lick across her entrance.

She arches off the bed, using her heels pressed into the mattress to push herself harder against his face. He can already feel her trembling underneath him, and he smiles even as he presses his tongue deep inside her cunt.

Her body is awash in pleasure, the instinct to chase after it warring with the instinct to pull away and protect herself from its intensity. It’s been _so long_ since anyone touched her like this, not even counting the 600-year stasis nap everyone jokes about.

This thing with Harry? It’s real and it’s intense and it’s already the best thing that’s ever happened to her. One of her hands finds its way back into his hair and grips at the thick locks while the other covers her mouth to hold in the cries she already feels trying to escape. She’s not sure how thin the walls are between her apartment and her neighbors, but they probably aren’t _that_ thick either.

Harry eats her like a man starved, enthusiastic and not gentle and exactly what she needs. She falls over the edge with a muffled wail, clenching her thighs around his head and holding him against her with her hand. He gazes up at her from between her legs, eyes wide and dark as he watches her falling apart under his touch.

She trembles through the end of her orgasm and then she’s pushing him away instead of holding him close, and he sits up with a laugh.

“I think _you’re_ going to be the death of _me_ ,” she says, then props herself up on her elbows, trying to control the trembling of her thighs at the same time. “Pants off, doctor.”

His eyes darken even more, but his hands go to the laces of his shoes. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her grin grows even wider as he pulls a familiar foil-wrapped packet out of his pocket and tucks the corner of it between his teeth before pushing his pants, underwear, and socks off in one motion. “Oh, expected this, did you?”

He rips one edge off with the help of his teeth before responding with a throaty chuckle. “Better safe than sorry, right?” She just arches her eyebrows at him with a soft smile and watches with great interest as he rolls the condom on with a satisfied little grunt.

She reaches for him then, pulling him back onto the bed so that she can climb back into his lap and wrap her arms around his neck. It’s a position growing comfortable in its familiarity, though his erection trapped between their naked bodies is a _very_ welcome change as their tongues meet once more.

“You’re amazing.” Harry’s hands on her waist lift and guide her until his cock is poised right at her opening. She flexes her hips and guides him into her, tipping her head back and groaning with clenched teeth until she’s taken him in completely. He presses kisses to her throat and chest, tongue tasting her skin as she slowly starts to move her hips.

“I can’t believe, _hng_ , it took you this long,” she mutters, finding her rhythm with slow, rocking thrusts.

He catches her skin between his teeth, making her shudder and then clench around him. “I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere now.”

She pauses in her movements just to look at him, her hands moving from the back of his head to cup his jaw. She studies his face, looking for _something_ to reassure herself beyond his words and actions so far, just one more reason to let herself feel confident in their growing relationship.

The only thing she sees shining through his eyes is regret at causing her pain before agreeing to give them a chance and pure affection for her. She rubs her thumbs across his cheeks and then pulls him in for a long, deep kiss, trying to explain how happy she is without having to use her words.

He clutches her back, holding her tight until she breaks the kiss and takes a breath, then he flips them, rolling expertly until she’s on her back again and he’s between her legs with her ankles hooked together behind him. She leans her head back and laughs, loud and joyful, only for it to turn into a groan when he begins to move his hips.

Each thrust is slow and deep, toe-curlingly good, and Chloe does her best to match his rhythm in a way that makes her pleasure build once more. He can’t stop kissing her, his lips unerringly drawn to her skin as she holds him close.

“Chloe…” His voice rasping her name by her ear is almost her undoing, sending a thrill through her, and she clutches him tighter as he turns his head to catch her mouth in a final searing kiss.

They’ve both been waiting for this moment for months, putting it off for reasons that neither can remember right now, reasons that have faded away in the face of the connection they share and that grew during the weeks of Chloe’s convalescence.

Harry puts just enough space between their bodies for him to guide one of Chloe’s hands to their joining, a silent plea for her to touch herself. She obeys, fingers quickly becoming slick as they press into her clit in time with his increasingly erratic thrusts.

He comes before she does this time, a guttural groan her only warning before he grabs one of her thighs and buries himself deep inside of her. She shudders and presses harder on her clit until she follows him over the edge a moment later, this second orgasm making her call for him a final time as her vision goes black.

“That was amazing,” she gasps out, and Harry laughs again, his face still pressed against her neck and his cock still buried inside of her. She clutches him tighter as his shoulders shake with his laughter, and she kisses his cheek as he holds her close for a moment until he finally sits up and slips free of her.

He disappears into the bathroom, and Chloe listens as his footsteps echo dully and water runs as he cleans himself up. She waits until he returns to follow his example, cleaning quickly before returning to the bed, determined to catch him in case he’s planning to leave again.

He’s sitting up on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom door, though he’s made no attempt to dress. His hair is still disheveled, his cheeks still red, his eyes still soft and a smile still twisting his lips up. “Hi,” he says, and she chuckles as she steps into his arms.

She kisses him softly, resting her arms on his shoulders once more. “We didn’t get dinner.”

He laughs too, pulling her closer for another kiss. “We can find something in a minute.” He tugs her until she climbs on the bed beside him, then he lays down and pulls her against him. She cuddles against his chest, tucking cold toes between his ankles, and presses a kiss to his heated skin as he pulls her blanket over them both.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?” He sounds half asleep, and he might be after such a long day. “You okay?” His hand smooths down her side in a soothing motion, though he seems to get distracted as his fingers reach her ass. He cups it instead, squeezing softly before leaving his hand there.

She smiles against his skin. “Yeah. I’m… I’m happy.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Talk to me on [tumblr](http://ma-sulevin.tumblr.com/).


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